Diocese Reaches Settlement With 68 Who Accuse Priest of Sexual Abuse

In the largest case of its kind, 68 men and women who say they were sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest as school children in the 1960's announced today that they had reached an out-of-court settlement with the diocese of Fall River.

A lawyer for the group said the agreement included a financial settlement for each of the 68 people and an understanding that the diocese would soon issue tough new guidelines for handling cases of sexual abuse by priests. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed.

Peter Calderone, one of those who said he was abused, said the settlement "is not a medicine." Speaking at a news conference attended by two dozen others who said they were victims, Mr. Calderone said, "No amount of money can ever make what happened not happen." More Than 100 Complained

The 68 people are among more than 100 men and women in five states who say they were abused by the former priest, James R. Porter. Mr. Porter went on trial this week in Minnesota, where he now lives, on criminal charges of sexual misconduct with a baby sitter in 1987.

Mr. Porter, who is now 57 years old and married with four children, also faces separate civil suits brought in Minnesota and New Mexico by the people who say he abused them. People in Nevada and Texas have also accused Mr. Porter of abusing them.

Roderick MacLeish Jr., the lawyer for the group, said the new bishop of Fall River, Sean O'Malley, had made the agreement possible by meeting personally with some of the victims and agreeing to mediate the problem instead of forcing the victims to go to court. "Bishop O'Malley did the right thing," Mr. MacLeish said.

In a statement today, Bishop O'Malley, who was appointed last summer, said the settlement was just. He added, "The diocese has committed itself to an open and fair policy in cases of reported sexual abuse."

Bishop O'Malley indicated in earlier statements that the new policy would include establishing a review board of experts, including people from outside the church, to investigate claims of sexual abuse.

John Daignault, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School who helped test each of the 68 people to determine whether they had been abused, said, "This is the largest single group of victims of one perpetrator, in a position of authority, in psychology's history."

More victims may still come forward. At the news conference today, Carolyn Fitzpatrick Burns, a 44-year-old school psychologist, said it was only last summer, when she saw a television show about Father Porter, that she remembered how the priest had sexually assaulted her when she was attending St. Mary's parochial school in North Attleboro, Mass., in the early 1960's.

Ms. Burns is the sister of Frank Fitzpatrick, a private detective who first brought Father Porter's case to public light after he began to recall how the priest had raped him as an altar boy in North Attleboro three decades ago. Ms. Burns and Mr. Fitzpatrick have another sister, Janet Blythe, 41 years old, who has said she was also attacked by Father Porter at the time.

The first assault she now remembers, Ms. Burns said, occurred when she was 11 years old and heard someone crying in the school bathroom. When she went in to see who it was, she said, she found Father Porter raping a 6-year-old girl.

"I tried to stop him, but he grabbed me and sodomized me," Ms. Burns said. "He was absolutely violent. He told me he was stronger than me and that he had the power of God.

"After that, my whole life changed," Ms. Burns said, wiping away tears. "I underwent a dramatic personality shift. I had been very confident and outgoing before the attack. Afterwards, I became shy and withdrawn and had amnesia about what happened."

Ms. Burns said of the financial settlement, "It's just an acknowledgement by the church of what happened." But she said the settlement was significant, adding, "One of the most important things for a victim is to be believed." Early Complaints Dismissed

Several parents of the victims had complained to church officials at the time, but their complaints were dismissed and Father Porter was transferred from one church to another around Massachusetts. He was later sent to a center for troubled Catholic priests in New Mexico. After being pronounced cured, he was transferred to northern Minnesota. Several people there have recently come forward to say he molested them as children.

Mr. MacLeish said today that church records provided in connection with the case showed that "Father Porter's file was amazingly detailed" and that the church authorities were "well aware" of his misconduct.

Father Porter was permitted to leave the clergy after writing to Pope Paul VI in 1973 admitting he had hidden "behind a Roman collar" to sexually abuse children.

Mr. MacLeish and the victims had said that if they could not reach an agreement with the church they might file suit. While they declined to disclose the amount of the settlement, Paul Finn, president of Commonwealth Mediation, a private company that helped mediate the dispute, said that "it's going to pay for a lot of therapy" for the victims. Many have been undergoing counseling.

Massachusetts law limits the liability of charitable institutions, like churches, to $20,000 for acts of misconduct by members.

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A version of this article appears in print on December 4, 1992, on Page A00022 of the National edition with the headline: Diocese Reaches Settlement With 68 Who Accuse Priest of Sexual Abuse. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe